After an excruciating wait of 35 years, England finally won a world cup. That not too many in England gave them a chance was evident from the lack of interest in the tournament, says Sunil Gavaskar.

After an excruciating wait of 35 years, England finally won a world cup. That not too many in England gave them a chance was evident from the lack of interest in the tournament.

But teams can change their fortunes once self-belief sets in and that is what happened with England. They survived elimination because Ireland just didn't have the talent to take advantage of the D/L method, thus making a hash of what should have been an easy target.

After that, England were a different team. They stopped thinking about the negatives. Their team selection also was very good. They had three really aggressive players at the top who made the difference as they did not allow the opposition to get on top.

Then they had the calm, cool, Paul Collingwood to come in and bat according to the need of the hour. He is such an underrated batsman simply because he does not have a high back-lift and so looks as if he is stroking the ball apologetically. But he has one of the best temperaments in the business and he brought that to his captaincy as well. He never panicked and his body language was always good and that rubbed off on his team. Australia were unbeaten till the final and the manner in which they entered the final with the incredible win in the semifinals made them the favourites. Cricket, the great leveller, though had different ideas and within the first quarter of their innings, the Aussies found themselves in trouble. They then compounded the situation by delaying the advent of the semis match-winner Michael Hussey to the crease. And, by the time he got in it was too late.